At first I thought they looked like spent .22 cal shells that some one stuck in there. But they looked too clean, so I wondered if they were posts for implants, but they looked too big for that. Thanks for the explanation, Doc!

We went through a period of job loss combined with a serious illness, and our family of five ended up on food stamps for a few months. Very eye-opening. I already had become very frugal with our grocery budget ($125/week for a family of five) by making everything from scratch, limiting processed foods, making tea instead of soda, etc., but when I went back to work full time, I quickly realized that, like a lot of things in the frugal life, it is a time vs money choice. If I walk in from a 12 hour day, I don’t have the time or energy to prepare a whole chicken from scratch. it’s easier to get the frozen burritos or ramen noodles or something equally detrimental to one’s health. Our solution was to use a crock pot most days, or try to get a lot of cooking done on a day off and freeze it, but really having time to cook from scratch is a luxury.